She was obviously an extraordinary political leader, with a unique, uncompromising style. She did not shrink from confrontation and openly scorned consensus. She was a conviction politician, who sharply divided people. While, in retrospect, you can point to tides of opinion – against the trade unions and the post-war state – which ran in...
Be careful what you wish for was central theme of a fascinating seminar about public inquiries held at the Institute for Government just before Easter—which featured Lord Butler, who chaired the privy counsellor inquiry into intelligence about weapons of mass destruction ahead of the Iraq war; Lord Bichard, who ran the inquiry into child...
This is a murky, and still unresolved, affair in which Sir Jeremy played a peripheral role. He was asked by David Cameron to examine whether two e-mails sent by a constituent of John Randall, the Deputy Chief Whip, changed the Prime Minister’s original assessment of the Chief Whip’s conduct. Sir Jeremy concluded that the...
At the heart of this fiasco is the story of a department attempting an innovative approach to commissioning but never getting to grips with it. The Treasury signed off the process on the basis that this was “a pilot to inform future decisions, but would not represent a final model for future franchises”. Even...
The cautious, and heavily caveated, interim report demolishes the ‘rogue trader’ view: that the flawed process was the result of mistakes by just a few civil servants. Rather, they ‘appear to have been caused by factors including inadequate planning and preparation, a complex organisational structure and a weak governance and quality assurance framework’. The questions...
Of course, such incidents should not tarnish the whole Civil Service. There are many examples of high quality performance, improvement and commitment to reform across Whitehall, not least in the handling of the Olympics project by the Civil Service (to be discussed in a series of forthcoming Institute for Government events, and a report)....
The Government is right to look overseas for ideas on alternative structures of ministerial/civil service relations. There is a strong case for strengthening accountability, both within Whitehall and with Parliament. But the new review, to be conducted by outsiders, is likely to find that, while there are intriguing lessons from abroad, there are no...
Paul Deighton is the latest in a distinguished line of GOATs brought in to provide business and delivery expertise for the Government. The future Lord Deighton — as he will become when he takes over in January from Lord Sassoon as unpaid Commercial Secretary to the Treasury — has had a very successful career...
U-turn is among the most over-used terms in political debate along with ‘the most disastrous week ever’; ‘it’s not brain surgery/rocket science’; ‘UKplc’. It is part of gotcha journalism and politics, when a government weakness and policy change is highlighted — as is happening now with the withdrawal of Budget proposal on hot takeaway...
All organisations should evaluate their policy successes and failures—the theme of a fascinating series of policy reunion seminars and events at the Institute for Government organised by Jill Rutter, who also hosted workshops for Treasury staff for this review. Understanding what works and what doesn’t is central to improving later performance. With the Financial...